The Rams come back on Sunday (October 15) when they take on East Midlands’ rivals Nottingham Forest at Pride Park Stadium.

With international breaks, it always gives a time to reflect back on the season so far. So, who has stood out in the Championship and who (or what) has been a bitter disappointment.

Let’s take a look.

Three up

Surprise packages

Bristol City celebrate against Derby County (Image: Andy Clarke)

How many people predicted a top six including Cardiff City, Bristol City, Sheffield United and Preston North End at this stage of the season?

The Championship often throws up surprise packages (Bournemouth, Huddersfield Town etc) and this season looks like it will be no different.

Neil Warnock is a man who knows how to get results at this level, so it perhaps shouldn’t be a great surprise to see Cardiff challenging – but the fact they lead the pack and have tasted just one league defeat in 11 will have raised eyebrows.

Fresh from promotion from League One, Sheffield United have wasted no time in finding their feet in the division. Chris Wilder has overseen a memorable start, with seven wins and a Steel City derby drubbing, to have the Blades in third.

Special mentions also for Bristol City and Preston North End. The former we will come on to shortly, while Alex Neil has carried on where Simon Grayson left off at North End. Following his dismissal as Norwich City boss, Neil is back in the game and has only suffered one league defeat.

Three down

It would be very easy to sit here and say Bolton Wanderers should be number one in this list, having not registered a league win in 11 games.

Their two draws and nine defeats leave them seven points adrift of safety already. However, they did have a transfer embargo to cope with, meaning they couldn’t pay fees for players on full-time or loan deals following promotion from League One.

Sunderland also haven’t spent bucket-loads of cash, but additions have included Premier League names Aiden McGeady, Callum Mcmanaman, Marc Wilson and Lewis Grabban.

It came after Craig Bryson and Jacob Butterfield had been allowed to leave the club on loan deals.

Derby weren’t the only club to fall foul of this, though. Barnsley thought they had signed Swansea City’s Oli McBurnie, but again that was said to have been completed after the deadline.

It marked a messy end to a messy day for all clubs. So much so, that the majority of the 72 EFL clubs indicated they would be in favour of an earlier closure of the transfer window from next season, at a meeting last month.

The decision will be put to a formal vote in February next year to decide whether the window should be shut before the season starts.